Surveillance applications are increasingly deploying unmanned vehicles, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), to aid in object tracking. Unmanned vehicles are remotely piloted or self-piloted vehicles that can carry cargo such as cameras, sensors and communications equipment. They have been used in a reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering role since the 1950s.
Many of these applications include tracking moving objects by mounting an image capturing device (e.g., a video camera) to the unmanned vehicle. Typically, the image capturing device captures video of the object being tracked and sends the video signal to a base station with which the unmanned vehicle is in communication. The base station then stabilizes the video signal and tracks the object.
Although such an arrangement provides reliable tracking capabilities in many circumstances, it also imposes limits on the range of the unmanned vehicle, as well as the types of tasks that the unmanned vehicle may perform, because the unmanned vehicle must be in constant communication with the base station, which performs the video stabilization and tracking. However, to date, few viable alternatives to this arrangement have been proposed, because the sizes and power requirements for the stabilization and tracking equipment make them too large to feasibly incorporate in the unmanned vehicle itself.
Thus, there is a need in the art for a method and apparatus for autonomous object tracking.